Psalm 5 “A Psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King, and my God, for to you do I pray. O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch”.

Look here: Does David not seem demanding, presumptuous….even rude to God? Of Course. Yet here, He shows the only proper way to bring our petitions to God in prayer.

 

Oh, how our therapeutic, secularized, humanized, psychologized, individualized age has diminished our view of the power of prayer, to whom we are praying and how we pray.

 

Our age is highly casual, even contra-authoritarian. Why, Where the autonomous, Self and has replaced God’s Law, how we feel becomes the arbitrator for our relationships, self-fulfillment the new (holy) standard. Prayer, even to God, necessarily becomes casual, or optional, or a plead, or a persuasion, hinting as we might to a friend to get our way.

 

We treat God as a therapist: we share our feelings with God, and he sits calmly, looks us in the eye, empathizes, and then affirms us, and we did our duty (and don’t change).

 

How little, if ever do we pray with the expected boldness of the Psalmist, much less even asking God to bring judgment and retribution on our enemies (His enemies).

 

Psalm 5:10 “Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you”.

 

Therapeutic-informed prayers fall flat. We are not praying to a friend, nor a buddy. Even though humming and hawing and hinting sound humble, it is anything but. God is not honored with our own, sin wrought diminishment of him. He is not honored with vague, “just be with them” prayers. Praying this way is not a mark of humility, it is the opposite: It is proud and self-focused, as it reflected a very small, diminished god of our own imaginations, run through our self-therapeutic, feel-good lens.

Considered from another angle: the games we play with our children: Hide and Go Seek, this requires human limitations of being in one place at one time. But you don’t’ play this with God. He is Holy. He is other. He is above all earthly inventions and powers.

 

Look no further than the Posture, pattern, and position of prayer from the Psalms, specifically those written by the man, who was also a human king.

David is a king, but of a different kind than the True King. God is a Sovereign, we are not merely his subjects, we are his creation.

 

He rules and reigns over every single molecule, every puppet king, every crevasse, and hidden place upon the earth. He is in this room reigning today, as he was in your rooms last evening. His Law informs us what is actually right and wrong, good and evil. This is the best, clarifying, God-therapy, as we pray fuller, holy Prayers for God’s Glory because we know God’s will.

 

Holy God both offer and expect bold prayers…He is the King, after all. Pray boldly, specifically, humbly before the King, with trembling repentance, trusting in the Gospel of King Jesus to save us, yet with an expected response before the Lord, who promises to answer his children and, through His steadfast love, do good for and to and through them (Romans 8:28). Let us pray accordingly.